Getting the mail from the railroad was the problem, but this was solved by a star route from Kimball to Gering in late 1S87. Jones M. Clapp was the first carrier. For many years, Emery Lewis who resides near Harrisburg in 1921, drove this route on the north end and also kept the route going from Ashford to Redington. The Harrisburg-Scottsbluff division is now maintained by Roy Lewis, and a Dodge car has superseded the rattling old stage of years ago. The trip is made in an hour or two that formerly took half a day. Ham Lilly and C. A. Forsling for years attended the Harrisburg-Kimball portion of the route, and the same is now operated by Floyd Lewis, with the same improvement in character of service. Emery Lewis, the veteran stage driver, resides at Harrisburg, and is retired to his farm south of town.

The First Stores

The date of the first mercantile establishment in Banner county I cannot give with certainty. In 1887 A. S. Alexander had a store in the Lone Pine country where we used to go seventeen miles for mail.

But I believe L. D. Livingston had the first store. It was running as early as June, 1886, the grout house being built the previous year. Lightning struck this grout house and cracked the walls soon after it was built and the family thereafter lived in the log house and used the new house for mercantile and postoffice and for the merry parties of the olden time.